Lightbulbs
by Arctic Banana
Summary: A simple trip to the supply closet to retrieve a pack of lightbulbs turns into a nightmare when the Autobots find themselves inadvertently trapped inside. How will they keep themselves entertained long enough not to kill each other while they wait for a rescue?


_Scrap, I thought I posted this weeks ago when one of the biggest jokes in it was still relevant. Whoops..._

_This takes place sometime between the events of Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon, so some of the Autobots from DotM have already begun to show up while others that weren't in the third film haven't yet disappeared into off-screen oblivion. Also I went with the names "Wheeljack" and "Mirage" instead of their movie names...probably because they sound more like Transformer names to me than Que and Dino. Seriously, why do they have two names? Don't they realize how frickin' confusing that is for a fanfic writer? Also if it doesn't become immediately apparent, I've always preferred Arcee's original movie design where she actually had legs, so that's the version of her I always have in mind while writing._

_Be warned, DotM is my least favorite of all four Transformers movies, so I unsurprisingly discovered upon writing this that I couldn't even remember the names of any of the new Autobots in that film aside from Brains (whom I actually like), even after watching it six or seven times. I somehow even forgot that Shockwave was in it and I'd been waiting for him to make an appearance since they put him in the tie-in game. I probably spent more time researching the new 'Formers on the Transformers wiki for accuracy than I did writing the story, only to say "screw it!" and delegate them all to minor positions. In contrast I think I have a better idea of character for the cast of RotF and most of them could be described as "cameos" rather than actual characters in that film._

* * *

Ratchet swore to himself when the lightbulb at his desk blew out. "I think that was the last one too..." he grumbled. He opened the top drawer of his desk and pushed things around, finding a lightbulb box all the way in the back. The box was empty. Just as he thought. He'd asked Wheeljack to fetch him a replacement box after the incident where Jolt decided to see if he could juggle only for him to strangely disappear without a trace. Maybe he somehow managed to open a bridge to an alternate dimension in his quest for the lightbulbs. Ratchet wouldn't put it past him to do something like that.

The door opened and Arcee entered with a tray of food. "Ironhide asked me to take this to you. He said you were busy and haven't eaten since yesterday," she said, setting it down on an empty spot on the desk.

"Thanks, Arcee," he replied. "Could you do me a favor before you leave?"

"Sure. What do you need?" she asked.

"Go into the 3rd Corridor supply closet and get me a pack of lightbulbs, please. It's a bit disorganized, so you might want to bring someone with you to help you find them."

"Lightbulbs...I can do that," she nodded.

A few moments later, she was digging through the supply closet with Sideswipe and Jolt in tow with explicit instructions not to let Jolt attempt to juggle once they found what they were looking for. "Wow, he wasn't kidding. This closet is totally a mess," Sideswipe said. "It kind of looks like Ironhide and Chromia might have made it in here..." He quickly held his hands out and caught a stack of scrap metal that he bumped and nearly caused to fall over. "That was close..."

"Here they are!" Jolt said. He reached for the box of lightbulbs and gave a sharp tug, but they appeared to be stuck. "Huh...something's holding onto them."

"Let me try," Sideswipe offered. He gently nudged Jolt aside and grabbed ahold of the lightbulbs with both hands and pulled.

"Can you get it?" Arcee asked.

"I'll help..." Jolt grabbed onto them as well and both started pulling.

"How many Autobots does it take to retrieve a lightbulb?" Arcee said sarcastically.

"I think I felt it budge..." Sideswipe said. Finally the lightbulbs jerked free, dragging out of hiding the rusted corpse of the Autobot that had died holding it and sending Sideswipe flying backwards into the door, slamming it shut in the process. Jolt stumbled and nearly knocked over a shelf on top of him.

"Are you okay?" Jolt asked. He helped pull Sideswipe to his feet while Arcee examined the corpse.

"Wow, I never knew this guy was even in here!" Arcee said with a shock. She looked over her shoulder and noticed claw marks on the now closed door. The words 'Help me' were written on the wall in leaked transmission fluids. They'd gone unnoticed before when the door was open, blocking the wall in question from view.

"Holy slag, we've gotta report this!" Sideswipe agreed. He turned to the door and turned the knob. It appeared to be loose and despite the fact that it was turning endlessly in his hand, the door did not open.

"Well I guess we figured out how he died in here..." Jolt stated bluntly.

"Are you kidding me?!" Arcee shoved past Sideswipe and turned the loose knob, then banged on the door repeatedly.

"Don't worry Arcee, someone will notice we're gone and come looking for us eventually," Sideswipe said reassuringly. "Ratchet knows we're here at least, so I'm sure he'll come check on us when we haven't come back with his lightbulbs."

"Yeah. I guess so," she sighed. She sat down on a shelf and prepared to wait.

_8 hours later..._

"Oh my gosh, you guys smell that?! I think Chromia's making dinner tonight!" Jolt said when a pleasant smell began to waft through the air ducts into the supply closet. "Oh man, that means Elita's gonna make her energon brownies for dessert and we're missing it!"

Arcee noticed her stomach rumbling and realized that she hadn't gotten to eat yet today. She'd planned on eating after she returned to Ratchet. "They'll come soon, right?"

"If they don't, I think I'm going to end up eating those lightbulbs," Sideswipe sighed.

A few minutes of sitting around and doing nothing later, Sideswipe noticed something crawling on the floor. Upon getting a closer look at it, he realized that it was a tiny, brown house centipede that was making its way from one end of the storage closet to the next. "CENTIPEDE!" he screamed, jumping backwards into the stack of scrap. It nearly fell over on top of him, but he managed to steady it while simultaneously fleeing from the centipede. "Arcee, you need to get that!"

"Get what? What is it?" Arcee took a few steps closer and saw the centipede still scurrying across the floor. "Sweet Primus, no! I'm not killing that!" she screamed. "You do it!"

"No Arcee, _you _need to get that!" Sideswipe said in a dark tone.

The centipede hit a wall and changed its course, running straight towards Sideswipe and Arcee's feet. "Oh my god, oh my god! It's coming this way!" Arcee shouted. Sideswipe shrieked and quickly scaled a tall shelf and Arcee ran to the door and violently tried to force it open.

Meanwhile Jolt found what he was looking for in a nearby box. He approached the scurrying centipede and overturned the cup on it, trapping it instantly. "There. Problem taken care of!" he said. A wave of relief washed over the other two. Arcee collapsed on an overturned bucket and Sideswipe slowly slid to the bottom of the shelf he had climbed.

The door to the closet clicked and swung open. Ratchet seemed confused and a little worried. "What was all that screaming in here?" he asked with concern. "And what's taking you guys so long? The closet isn't that disorganized, is it?"

"Ratchet! Thank Primus you found us!" Arcee shouted. She lept up to her feet and threw her arms around his waist. "Oh yeah, these are for you." She handed him the box of lightbulbs that they had retrieved for him.

Ratchet noticed the corpse leaning against the wall. "How long has that been there?!" he said with stunned surprise. He began to walk away from the door and kneeled before the rusty body. "Oh no, Wheeljack! I was wondering where you went!"

The other three both spun around when they heard a noticeable click. It would seem that someone had turned on the central air and the gust coming from the air vents blew the door shut. "NO!" they all screamed before jumping at the door and attempting to pry it back open.

"You could always use the knob," Ratchet pointed out.

"The knob's broken! We've been trapped in here for eight hours!" Arcee pointed out.

"What?" Ratchet stood up and approached the door. He turned the knob and realized that it was broken when it just turned endlessly without actually opening the door. "Oh no...that's not good..."

"Now what do we do?" Sideswipe asked.

Ratchet sighed and leaned against the wall. "I guess we wait."

_3 hours later..._

"Does anyone else hear that?" Jolt asked. The four of them all listened to the sounds that came through the air vents. "Ah man, I think they're having movie night without us!"

"Sounds like they're watching _Dirty Harry_. It must be Ironhide's night to pick the movies," Arcee pointed out.

"We are gonna die in here, aren't we?" Sideswipe sighed grimly.

"Well if we do, at least I couldn't have picked three finer recruits to die with," Ratchet said.

His words at least made the other three smile and feel a little better about their supposed imminent demise. They all heard the door click and a familiar voice saying, "See, I told you I wasn't goin' crazy!"

"You said you heard voices, sounded like crazy talk to me."

They looked over at the door and saw Skids and Mudflap standing there. Mudflap absentmindedly shut the door behind him. "NO!" everyone shouted. They all jumped forward and hit the floor attempting to stop him, but it was too late and the door was shut.

"What?" Skids asked when the twins noticed the murderous looks on their faces.

"I changed my mind. I'm in the smelter..." Ratchet sighed.

_3 more hours later..._

Ratchet was the only one still awake. Arcee and Jolt were both competing to use his lap as a pillow and Sideswipe was passed out next to the door. The twins were all the way in the back somewhere where they'd debated quietly leaving them should someone rescue them while they slept. Ratchet looked up when he heard what sounded like footsteps coming down the corridor.

"Hey! Is someone there?!" he shouted.

"Mmm...keep it down, Ratchet," Arcee mumbled sleepily.

Ratchet gently pried Arcee and Jolt's heads off his lap, attempted to stand up, and noticed that both his legs were numb. One or both of them must have been compressing an energon line in his legs. He stumbled a bit and fell over by the door, which miraculously everyone else managed to sleep through. "Is someone there? Please, open the door!" he shouted. He reached out and knocked on a corner of the door, hoping the sound could be heard by whoever was passing by.

A few seconds later, the door flew open and Ironhide was standing in the doorway. "What are ya'll doin' in here?" he asked.

"Ironhide! Thank Primus you're here! We've been trapped in this closet for hours!" Ratchet sighed with relief.

"Trapped? How are you trapped?"

"The doorknob is broken," he pointed out.

Ironhide looked at the door curiously. To Ratchet's horror, he proceeded to shut it and then tried to open it from the inside. "Huh, you're right. It's broken." After a beat, he realized what he just did. "Oh slag...why didn't you warn me that would happen _before_ I shut the door?" All Ratchet could do was bury his face in his hands and muffle his screams.

_An impossibly lengthy amount of time later..._

It became apparent that not many of the Autobots were all that bright or utilized common sense when they had a small army locked in the closet with them come noon the next day. If Arcee had to hear one more mech complain about how bored or hungry he was, she was going to punch someone in the jaw.

"Good news, everyone!" Ratchet said. He wiped the rust off his hands and stood up after examining Wheeljack's body. "He's not actually dead! He just went into stasis lockdown to preserve energy! A little bit of energon and some rust remover and Wheeljack's going to be just fine!"

"Yeah, he'll certainly be fine...if we ever get out of here, anyway," Mirage grumbled.

"Okay, so I think the only ones not in the closet at this point are Chromia, Elita-1, and Optimus..." Ironhide said. "Hopefully one of them will find us soon. Hopefully not my Chromia because she will never let me hear the end of it."

"I knew we should have stayed with Sam and Bumblebee," Wheelie sighed.

"Told ya," Brains agreed. "You just never listen to me."

Jolt started complaining about his pet ferns that he had to water and how his guinea pigs and turtles needed feeding and quite a few of the other mechs were getting rather antsy in their pantsies and restless. It was a tiny closet. There wasn't much space for them all in there and it was hard to move without hitting or stepping on someone with all of the Autobots sitting and laying around everywhere. Ironhide managed to take out half the closet just trying to walk from one end to the other. Quite a few times someone would bump the stack of scrap metal and nearly cause it to fall on someone, but they always managed to catch it in time before it did.

"Since it looks like we're going to be here for a while, we should decide who we're going to eat first," Sideswipe said.

"I nominate Skids and Mudflap!" Jolt shouted. The twins both sat upright when they heard their names.

"Alright, all in favor of eating Skids and Mudflap, raise your hand!" Nearly everyone in the closet raised their hands eagerly.

"Hey! Dat's cold!" Skids stated. Mudflap scooted closer to his brother when he realized that Roadbuster, sitting next to him, had his hand raised also.

Ratchet was the only one who didn't seem amused at the very least at the suggestion of eating the twins. They were both idiots with a tendency to drive him up the wall sometimes but he didn't want any harm to come to them, whether physical or emotional. "You guys cannot just vote to eat people, Sideswipe."

"Sure you can! You can do many amazing things with the power of democracy!" Sideswipe replied. "For example, all in favor of Ratchet being female!" This time everyone raised their hand, with the obvious exception of Ratchet. "Congratulations on your new gender, Miss Ratchet!"

"Gender does not work that way!" she retorted.

Ironhide leaned in closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "So Ratchet, since you're a woman now, ya doing anything next weekend?" Ratchet wordlessly shoved the business end of a medical laser up against Ironhide's side and threatened to turn it on. He quickly let go and backed away from her. "Well you make a pretty ugly woman anyway..."

"I'm bored. What should we do while we wait for someone to find us?" Wheelie asked.

"Hmm...back on Cybertron, my old war buddies and I would pass the time in between battles by telling stories," Ironhide suggested.

"Like what kind of stories?" Arcee asked curiously.

"I don't know. I always fell asleep halfway through them. My friends weren't very good storytellers."

"One of you guys has to have a story though, right?" Topspin asked. "I mean we've only got the whole friggin' base in here, so someone must have something!"

"Mud an' I could tell a story!" Skids suggested.

"No thanks. I'm sure whatever you have to say is probably stupid," Jolt replied.

"Hey!"

"Arcee should tell us a story," Mirage suggested. "She always has good ones."

"What? No. I don't think I should," Arcee shook her head. She hesitated a moment in consideration. "Well...okay, maybe. What story should I tell?"

"How about you tell them about the NEST company picnic?" Ironhide suggested.

"Oh, the company picnic!" Arcee said. "That was a bigger disaster than the Hindenburg and the 2008 Alone in the Dark reboot combined!"

"It couldn't have been that awful," Leadfoot said skeptically.

"Trust her, it was." Sideswipe buried his face in his hands and started laughing. "I don't even know whether I should laugh or cry over that memory, so I think I'll do both!"

"Was it really as bad as Ironhide said it was?" Ratchet asked. "Now I'm glad I didn't go."

"I've never heard of this..." Jolt replied.

"That's because you hadn't gotten to Earth yet, because evidently Primus loves you more than me," Sideswipe stated sardonically.

"Okay, so NEST decided to have its first annual company picnic, right?" Arcee began. Everyone in the room stopped talking amongst themselves and listened up for a chance to hear about this fabled natural disaster.

* * *

The organizing committee for the picnic had agreed on an unused hangar at NEST headquarters for the location. The building, as it turned out, was unused because it was pretty isolated from the rest of the complex by trees and water and was insanely difficult to travel to by any means other than air. Unfortunately for Arcee, Sideswipe, and Ironhide, none of them could fly.

"Anyone remember Springer?" Arcee said. "Yeah, he had a crush on me. I'm sure he would have given us a ride, easily, if I asked him to."

"Dammit, now I wish I _was_ the tooth fairy. I hear she gets wings," Ironhide grumbled the third time he got stuck in the mud. He had to transform in order to climb out of the rut he'd gotten himself into. He scraped handfuls of mud out of the seams of his body and dropped them onto the jungle plants below. "Screw this. I'll get there faster by walking."

Sideswipe agreed and transitioned back into his robot mode alongside him. "It's going to take me forever to get this crap out of my wheels," he complained, picking out a small, muddy stick that had gotten lodged in his side mid-transformation.

Arcee had given up on driving and started walking long ago. "Don't worry guys, we're almost there," she tried to reassure them.

Half an hour later, they finally arrived at the agreed upon location of the picnic. There were maybe three humans walking around outside. For a company picnic, the place sure looked dead...zombie apocalypse dead. Which was fitting considering the three of them looked like they'd just crawled out of the mouth of the apocalypse itself.

"Uh...I'm sure they're all inside, right?" Sideswipe said. The others seemed to have the same ominous feelings about this picnic that he did.

Sideswipe was right about one thing: There were definitely more people inside than there were walking out. Unfortunately their numbers were still relatively underwhelming for what they'd expected with their knowledge of how many people ran and worked under NEST and the hangar appeared disturbingly empty. Arcee noticed the dessert table's contents subsisted entirely of a plate of stale, store-bought cookies and an undecorated vanilla sheet cake with plain, white frosting that didn't even cover the sides and Sideswipe was examining some of the half-deflated balloons that were hung limply everywhere. Despite being tied on strings, they appeared to have never contained helium or otherwise been capable of ever floating at all without the help of a breeze.

They were greeted at the entrance by the overenthusiastic head organizer for the event. "Tom Berkeley! I'm glad to see you've finally come!" the organizer introduced himself. He appeared to be trying to look past Ironhide so he could see outside. "So, when's Optimus Prime coming?"

"He's not," Ironhide replied. "Your people never prepared an airlift for him and he would have had a harder time getting through the jungle than we did."

Tom's smile suddenly seemed a little more strained. "I see...what about Bumblebee?"

"Evidently none of you remembered to invite him. He had no idea there was even a picnic until this morning and it's too late to fly him in now," Arcee responded.

"Okay...and Ratchet?"

"He just didn't feel like coming," Sideswipe stated bluntly. "He said he had better things to do than mingle with the commoners." That wasn't exactly the phrasing that Ratchet used, but it was close enough in Sideswipe's opinion.

Tom maintained his strained smile. "Well at least some Autobots showed up, anyway. You guys were our main draw. We've got people flying in from all over to come see you." He noticed someone who was just arriving and said, "Oh, the petting zoo's arrived! Put them over there in the pen!" The trio of Autobots turned their heads towards the petting zoo and realized that it was a pair of bullmastiffs dressed as sheep and one actual sheep.

"You are compensating us for this in some way, right?" Arcee asked. "I mean we have things we should be doing, but we agreed to come out here anyway."

"Of course we are!" Tom nodded. "All Autobots who showed up will get an extra hour in the ball pit!"

One of Ironhide's optics cocked. "Ball pit?"

* * *

Ironhide had one foot buried in the inflatable kiddie pool full of plastic balls, the only part of him that actually fit inside of the "ball pit". Arcee sat on top of it, several of the colorful balls in her lap and both of her legs hanging out over the side.

"Clearly there is hours of enjoyment to be had here," she said dryly.

A parade of humans were being led towards them. Catching sight of them, Ironhide momentarily forgot that Arcee was sitting on his foot and pulled it out of the ball pit so he could turn around, causing her to tumble out onto the floor. "Sorry..." he mumbled as she glared at him.

"And these are two of the many Autobots allied with NEST," Tom said as he introduced the humans to them. Ironhide and Arcee recognized some of the humans as government officials who had often spoken to them over phone lines, satellites, and Internet connections but never actually in person.

"Ironhide. Weapons specialist," Ironhide introduced himself to the humans. "Nice to finally meet you."

A woman standing up front leaned towards Tom. "You promised that we'd get to meet Optimus Prime," she whispered angrily in a posh, British accent.

"...or not," Ironhide sighed.

"So what about him? Who's he?" another one of the new humans asked. Arcee at first thought he was talking about Sideswipe, who was over by the petting zoo poking the sheep, but soon realized that he was talking about her.

"I'm Arcee," she said. Her clearly feminine voice seemed to surprise the gaggle of humans watching them like tourists at a national landmark.

"Wait, you're female? Robots have genders?" About half of the witnessing humans appeared to have had their minds blown by this revelation.

"Um, yeah? How could you not tell I'm a woman? I'm bright pink!" Arcee pointed out.

"My four-year-old son's favorite color is pink. I figured I just wouldn't question your choice of color scheme," another human shrugged.

"Why do robots need genders anyway? I thought new Transformers were made with the Allspark."

"Can machines even have sex?"

"Do you have a boyfriend?" someone asked a little too enthusiastically. The entire crowd turned to stare at a guy standing all the way in the back. He slowly began to sink down into the crowd like a turtle hiding in its shell.

Ironhide noticed that Arcee was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the humans grilling her about her gender. He probably would have shot them all if he hadn't promised Prime that he'd behave. Instead, he grabbed her by the shoulders and started pushing her towards Sideswipe. "We have to go. It was nice talking to you," he excused himself. Once they were out of earshot he added, "Except not really...you're all horrible."

He sighed when he heard one of the humans add, "I'll bet it's him..." when they thought they were too far away to hear them.

"What was that about?" Sideswipe asked. Evidently tired of being poked at, the sheep headbutted Sideswipe's hand away when he went to touch it again.

"Don't ask," Ironhide shook his head.

The Autobots simultaneously turned their heads when they heard a familiar voice. "Come on, Dispensor! We saved your life and gave you a home here! The least you can do is give us a soda when we ask for it!"

"Lennox!" the trio of Autobots shouted excitedly. He was the first friendly face they'd seen at this picnic so far.

Lennox was busy fighting with the transforming Mountain Dew vending machine that they'd spared after Sam accidentally animated it at Mission City. Dispensor, as usual, was kind of cranky and one often had to use some method of persuasion to get him to hand over their drink. Gentle persuasion, mind you. He'd once hospitalized a guy for banging on him after he ate his quarters and held the arm of another hostage in the drink slot for six hours because he'd insulted him by comparing him to a mindless drone.

"Hey guys!" Lennox said when he looked up. "I see Optimus Prime was smart enough to be a no-show."

"I guess he figured that, as alluring as a free hour in the ball pit sounded, he would rather stay home and marathon Primeval with Ratchet," Sideswipe stated.

"Too bad I didn't have that kind of foresight," Lennox sighed. "Did you see the food they're serving us? I dropped a hot dog on the floor and it bounced about six inches. Hot dogs should not bounce like that!"

"At least you have food," Ironhide replied. "They didn't even think to provide anything we Autobots could actually eat."

"Or do..." Sideswipe added in a bummed out tone. "I'm bored!"

"Yeah...I'm probably going to bail out early," Lennox nodded. "This place is just too exciting for me to handle." At that moment a can of Code Red shot out of the slot on the front of Dispensor and flew past Lennox's head, knocking off his hat and startling the crap out of him. Miraculously it didn't smash open in the landing despite the large dent that was now in the side of the can, so Lennox went to retrieve it. "Not funny, Dispensor!" A noise arose from the drink machine that was likely him snickering.

"I'd wait a little while before you open that," Ironhide warned him. He'd had a few sodas explode inside of him before and knew how unpleasant that could be.

Epps waved to his Autobot friends as he came up behind Lennox. "Hey Lennox, did you see the game area they just set up?"

"No, what do they have? Anything good?" Lennox asked.

Epps pointed towards a corner of the room where a small, 30-year-old television set with a black and white display (it had a color setting, but it was so old that no one knew how to change it) sat atop a crate that had a Sega Genesis hooked up to it. One of the younger NEST operatives was turning a game cartridge over in his hands. "What the heck is this thing?" he asked.

Another was examining the controller. "Where are all the buttons?" he asked. "There's only like five of them! How am I supposed to play Call of Duty with only five buttons?"

"Berkeley is trying to organize a Flicky tournament. I doubt half these kids even know what a Flicky is," Epps added. "I don't know what a Flicky is and I lived through that era!"

Arcee sighed. "I'm going back to the ball pit," she mumbled.

* * *

"You know what would have made this ball pit even better? If they actually let me fly my daughter in from the States to play in it..." Lennox said flatly.

He was sitting across Arcee's lap so that they could both fit inside the ball pit at the same time and was tossing a dented green ball up into the air in one hand, the half-drunk can of Mountain Dew in the other. From where they sat they both had a good view of the Flicky tournament that was going on in the corner, of which two people were participating and a third was staring at the plug on an extra controller as though it were voodoo.

"Bumblebee probably would have had a blast in this," Arcee agreed. "We should fill up one of the extra hangars back at the home base with plastic balls and turn it into a giant ball pit."

"That would be amazing!" Lennox said as the mental image of a hangar full of plastic balls came to him. "I think _I_ would actually have to jump into that!"

There were footsteps on the ground behind them. "Hey, I hate to break it to you, but your extra hour is up," Tom said, tapping on Arcee's shoulder.

"But we've only been in here for barely thirty minutes!" Arcee pointed out.

"I'm sorry, but there's a long line waiting for the ball pit. You have to let someone else take a turn."

Arcee and Lennox both looked left and right. They were quite literally the only ones in the general vicinity of the ball pit right now. No one else so much as spared it a glance. "Is this hangar haunted?" Arcee asked sarcastically. "Because unless there are ghosts waiting, I don't see anyone."

"Trust me, they're there. Out!"

It was obvious that Tom wasn't going to let them remain where they were, so both of them reluctantly climbed out of the pool, plastic balls spilling out all over the floor as the under-inflated sides lowered from their movement. Neither of them made any motion to gather them up and return them. If the organizers didn't care, neither did they. To the surprise of no one, the ball pit remained empty even as they walked away from it.

"Hey Arcee," Sideswipe said in a dull tone. "I found a door. It leads to the outside. I discovered that we can leave through it and no one will try to stop us."

"We can't," Arcee grumbled. "I promised Lennox that we'd stay here and suffer along with him while we were in the ball pit together."

Sideswipe groaned. "Why would you ever promise a thing like that?"

"That man once saved my life. I'd promise him anything," Arcee replied.

"He pulled out a twig that was stuck in your gears. That's hardly life-saving."

"Hey, you have no idea how painful that twig was!" she protested. "We'll give it one more hour, then I'll get Ironhide and we can get the hell out of Dodge," Arcee promised. Sideswipe still looked upset. That was still one hour later then he wanted to remain here.

As it turned out there were more events to be had at the picnic anyway. They had a pinata- which as it was discovered upon breaking it open, had been neglected to actually be filled with candy. The trampoline had holes in it and their game of volleyball, which was by far the best event of the day, ended early when Arcee spiked the ball too high and managed to get it lodged in the rafters overhead where even Ironhide was too short to reach it.

Arcee jumped down from Ironhide's shoulder upon determining that there was no way they could reach it and noticed Sideswipe approaching them with something dragging behind him. "Um...someone tell Berkeley that we have a problem here," Sideswipe said. He held up the popped remains of the inflatable kiddie pool that he'd been dragging across the floor. A couple of balls that had gotten tucked in the plastic folds tumbled out.

"Oh Sideswipe, you deflated the ball pit?!" Arcee replied. "That was the most entertaining part of this picnic!"

"Well, I'm hungry and just about all partied out," Ironhide said. "I think maybe we should leave."

"I second that motion," Sideswipe agreed.

Tom seemed to catch onto their discontent and ran over to try to stop them. "Wait, you guys can't leave yet! We were just about to get out the karaoke machine!" he shouted.

Lennox walked over to the karaoke machine and picked up the sole CD they had for it. "Rapping to the Oldies 5?" he read off the album's cover.

"Yeah. We're out of here," Arcee said.

The three Autobots turned and walked out, ignoring Tom as he tried to convince them all to stay. Lennox traded a salute with them on the way out and all their NEST friends started waving goodbye and seemed genuinely sad to see them go. Probably because the party was pretty much on life support with them there and died and became a soulless revenant when they left.

"Well that was a thing that happened," Arcee sighed. They all stopped at the edge of the jungle and instantly their memories of having to trudge through it earlier flooded back to them.

"Slag..." Ironhide grumbled.

* * *

"And then a few days later I found out that someone had evidently peed in that ball pit I'd been sitting in," Arcee finished her story.

"You win," Leadfoot said. "You were right, that was the most awful experience I've ever heard of."

"The best part was when they tried to get us to come back for their picnic the following year," Sideswipe laughed. "I was like, hell no!"

Leadfoot and Roadbuster were both trying to see how many objects they could stack on Wheeljack's head before they all toppled over. They managed to make an impressive pyramid of paint cans, cardboard, and plastic cups that they found laying about in the closet.

"When you guys are done, we should try to play Jenga with your mountain," Topspin suggested.

"Is it our turn to tell a story yet?" Skids asked.

"No!" Roadbuster replied.

"Dear Primus, it touched me!"

There was a high pitched and girlish scream from the back of the storage closet and everyone stood up in a wave and tried to flee to the front of the room. It turned out that someone had accidentally kicked over the cup that had the centipede trapped and set it loose again. With Autobots attempting to flee in the confined space, the scrap pile nearly got knocked over again twice. Wheelie and Brains were never more thankful that they were sitting up someplace high when they saw several people larger than themselves getting stepped on and tripped over in the mad dash to escape from the creepy crawlie that was likely fleeing scared now from all the noise and vibrations. Any surface that was climbable was climbed in an effort to get off the floor.

"They can't actually scale walls, can they?!" Mirage asked from the top of a crate. He looked fearfully at the nearby wall.

"No way! Bugs are terrible at that!" Leadfoot replied. "That's why they're always falling out of trees and off ceilings onto your head!" The screaming picked up once more and everyone looked upwards for invisible bugs that might be waiting to fall off the ceiling onto their head. Sideswipe snatched Brains off the shelf next to him and held him over his head as a shield.

"Where is it? I got it!" Ironhide shouted. He charged his cannons and took aim at the bitty critter, prepared to shoot it in the confined and crowded area. Everyone within the blast range, which was pretty much everyone in the closet, scrambled madly to get out of the way.

Thankfully before he could do that, Ratchet jumped on his back, grabbed both his arms, and pulled him down to the floor. "What are you, crazy? You're going to put someone's optic out!" she scolded him.

Ironhide noticed the centipede running straight for his face and struggled to stand up with Ratchet pinning him to the ground. "Ratchet, get off! It's coming this way!" he panicked, squirming underneath the medic.

Just as before, Jolt calmly walked up to the centipede and trapped it with another cup. Everyone relaxed and collapsed on the floor now that the centipede was safely confined once more. Ratchet finally allowed Ironhide to stand back up again.

"Femmes and mechs, the fearless Autobots..." Ratchet said sarcastically while everyone slowly climbed down from their perch of choice.

_To be continued..._

* * *

_Yes, I'm totally referring to Ratchet using female pronouns now, because they voted for her to be a woman obviously, and everyone knows that's how that works._

_Here's to hoping I can actually be motivated to finish the next chapter. It's a choppy, confusing mess right now._


End file.
